Wednesday, March 31, 2010

For those of you who read my post on the Aquasana AQ-4000 water filtration system, I've had it for a month now and LOVE it. I highly recommend it.

And you may have also ready my post on making money on my blog through products I recommend and link to that you click on. So here goes. You can get the Aquasana AQ-4000 from Amazon for the same price I got it for: $99.

All government legislation initiating force against individuals is coercive. In fact, a bill's moral worth can be measured, so to speak, by its lack or level of coercion. We might call this the "coercion factor." We could even establish a numbers system for how coercive a measure is: on a scale of 0 to 10, with zero being non-coercive to 10 being murderously coercive.

The parameters for the measurement of a bill's coercion might be: 1) Does it force you to do something or prohibit you from doing something 2) Does it take family or property, including money, from you 3) What's the punishment for any violations 4) To what degree are the coercion and punishment 5) What precedent does it set for further coercion

There are hundreds of nuances to this kind of measurement, perhaps leaving most people to say, "Well, my gut says that's probably a '5' on the coercion factor."

For instance, a law could outlaw "hate" speech. That might rate a "2" on the scale, but if the punishment for that speech is the death penalty, then the coercive law must be rated a "10." If the punishment is a small fine, then perhaps it's a "3"; if a big fine, perhaps a "4." Or perhaps any coerciveness on speech automatically rates a "6," especially if a prison term is associated with it. In some countries, opposition political speech is punishable by the death penalty, which would rate those laws a "10."

Seat belt laws in every state in the union require you to spend 5 seconds to strap yourself in before driving or face a fine, usually not very big, but a fine nevertheless. If you obey this coercive legislation, then you may lose a small amount of your precious lifetime strapping yourself in. Perhaps you would always strap yourself in anyway. So, perhaps this law would rate a "1" for its small coercion and small fine.

How about taxes? Governments take anywhere from 30% to 60% of our income each year -- for those of us who work and own property such as cars. The punishment for not paying taxes is at least a significant fine and possibly, if you refuse to pay the fines, imprisonment with people who may rape you or beat you to death. The coercive laws of taxation might then rate a "7" for the degree to which they rob you of your lifetime and threaten you with imprisonment if you do not allow them to rob you of your lifetime.

For an industrious soul, I'll leave the itemization of coercive laws and the measurement of the degree of coercion and punishment in those laws, as well as any precedent set.

But before I leave, I'll address the coercion factor of the takeover of health decisions in the United States of America by the execrable being sneering at us from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C.

The coercive bill on our health probably rates a "7." It will force each of us healthy (or unhealthy) individuals to buy health insurance; it forces every American to give private information to the government; it takes over a huge portion of industry; it penalizes those who do not cooperate with fines; it threatens imprisonment for not paying fines; it sets an ominous precedent for the further erosion of individual rights (I consider this by itself worthy of a "4").

For those of you asking, "OK, David, how did you come up with the '7' without actually quantifying each aspect of your five parameters?" I say to you, "Yes, you're right. Please be my guest. I would love for somebody with the inclination to do so to quantify all of the above. My interest lies in getting the ball rolling."

I would love to hear the "coercion factor" mentioned each time a liberal or conservative makes his case for some new piece of oppressive altruism. I'd like to hear principled individuals discuss the issue of legislation with fundamentals involving individual rights. I think the coercion factor helps do that. Each time a wretched congressman or president brags of wanting to help Haiti or the sick or the underprivileged, I want to hear the rebuttal: "Who are you forcing to pay for your altruism? How much will it cost? What happens if people refuse to go along? What's the coercion factor, you mangy dog?"

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

A very long article in the Health & Wellness section of today’s edition of the Wall Street Journal did what you might expect on the issue of raw milk: a hatchet job.

The story is HERE, but you may be able to read it only if you are a WSJ subscriber. I’m not sure.

As some of you probably know, there have been some sicknesses recently that have been allegedly linked to raw (unpasteurized) milk. My family has been drinking this amazing stuff for years and never had a problem, and we have not heard of anyone else having a problem with it. The article also rounds up the usual suspects (ahem, “experts”) who say that raw milk doesn’t necessarily have any benefit nutritionally over dead (pasteurized) milk – although these same “experts” later say that you can get some probiotics from yogurt and kefir that are found in raw milk but not dead milk. Go figure.

As many of you know, raw milk (fresh from the cow) has not been heated to the surface temperature of the sun (pasteurized), so it still has its natural enzymes and vitamins, which help with digestion and nutrition. But this is what a guy named John Sheehan, the director of the FDA’s division of plant- and dairy-food safety, had to say about it: “Raw milk is inherently dangerous and should not be consumed by anyone at any time, for any reason.” You gotta wonder what a farm dad or mom in 19th century America would’ve said to Mr. Sheehan had Mr. Sheehan walked into their barn and shouted that lovely piece of ignorance. I can only hope that pitchforks would be included in the parents’ reply.

With the latest media frenzy (don’t these ignorant people have anything better to do?), the fascist authorities of the Centers for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration are pushing states to more highly regulate or ban raw milk. Georgia and Wisconsin are actually two states that have bills pending right now to legalize the sale of raw milk, but this latest crap from the media and the fascists may hinder that. We’ll see if the authorities and media can somehow not treat adults like 2-year-olds on this subject, like most others. Doubtful.

Whole Foods recently took all of its raw milk off of its shelves because it feared lawsuits from customers who drank raw milk and then claimed sicknesses from it.

I just set up an Amazon Associates membership on my blog, so when I review a book or recommend a product, you, my readers, can buy the item directly from Amazon from my blog post, if you like. I love Amazon and do most of my online purchases through them.

If you decide to do so, I'll make up to 15% off of your purchase.

You, of course, don't have to worry about my integrity when I recommend something -- unless you see me recommending Al (PudgeFascist) Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" for anything other than kindling for your fireplace.

Friday, March 26, 2010

The witty and funny Canadian columnist Mark Steyn wrote a wry and revealing column in November 2000 on the decrepit Canadian government health system.

Being an American, I got a visual of what passes for health care in the northern tundra, evoking images of dingy public restrooms, mindless clerks, endless waits, careless dismissals, and devil-may-care attitudes -- not to mention potentially life-threatening delays.

This is back-to-the-future ObamaCare. We simply can't have it. I won't have it.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

I've been an Objectivist now for 18 years and have had thousands of conversations with other Objectivists, from your average Joes to the very top guys and gals. They are the easiest people to talk with because we share a common philosophy, and we agree on the applications of Ayn Rand's seminal philosophy on most every point. (It goes without saying that we all agree fully on the philosophy itself -- and, yeah, I just said it anyway, right?)

But there are three points in which there is wide disagreement: If children must be schooled, whether we should bomb the hell out of all rogue countries right now, and whether men should largely take charge of the sexual experience in the bedroom with women.

The disagreement on these three issues re-emphasizes how difficult it can be to maintain objectivity always and to not bring undigested presumptions into arguments -- presumptions that are themselves complex and often almost invisibly lurking in one's subconscious. Those who are in the wrong on the above subjects often have a more fundamental problem, which precipitates the blindness to false presumptions.

The problem is that some people have not fully digested Objectivism and integrated it fully into their lives, thereby not creating full self-esteem, full cognitive visibility of thoughts, full connection to emotions, and a complete integration of virtue and values.

Here's how I think it plays out in life for those who haven't fully integrated. I'll start with my own error in the 1990s concerning men, women and the bedroom.

I had very long, and sometimes vociferous, conversations with several longtime Objectivists. They said that men naturally "dominate" women in the bedroom, and that was how it should be; men are dominate physically and more naturally aggressive, so that when it came time to get down to it, the man naturally took over, with the woman, of course, letting the man know what she wants and the man occasionally letting the woman do as she pleases with him. But the man rough-houses on occasion, as he is want to do -- and must do. He handles the woman.

These longtime Objectivists explained man's nature, but I looked at myself and didn't see that nature. I had not fully integrated Objectivism yet and was still soft -- ahem. I argued for the intellectual equality of men and women, and I supposed that that must translate to the bedroom. I discounted the physical. I heard other men talk of dominating women in the bedroom, but I was generally disgusted by this and held contempt for both parties who engaged in this rough-housing. At the time, I took some control, admittedly, but I felt guilty for doing so afterward. My psychology wasn't clean or right.

It wasn't until I got my own intellectual house in order that I -- for lack of a better way of putting it -- became a man. A full man. Filled with self-esteem. Comfortable with my more aggressive nature. Comfortable with handling a woman and enjoying watching her enjoy being handled. When I had integrated my virtues and values, pursued the right career, cleaned up my subconscious, and re-formed myself, the handling of women in the bedroom became natural. I couldn't imagine it any other way. I later told the longtime Objectivists that they were right.

The same unclean psychology comes into play with other issues, such as the schooling of children and the bombing of other countries.

With the schooling, many Objectivists (especially longtime ones, ironically) place a very high value on knowledge (as we all do) without considering it in the context of values -- in this case, the values of children. Many Objectivists think that children absolutely must obtain four things from adults early in life: 1) motivation 2) how to think 3) rigid structure 4) particular information.

They are wrong on all counts. Children free of coercion are self-motivated and huge value-pursuers. They are rational beings whose brains automatically put two and two together. They construct their own structures according to their value pursuits. And they decided what particular information they need relating to their value pursuits.

As with my errors in the sex issue, the facts in this issue are there, so why don't many Objectivists I respect see them? I can't accurately psychologize on it, but I can extrapolate that they have issues themselves that make them contemptuous of children's hegemony over their lives. Their self-esteem is somehow getting in the way. Perhaps they wish to have trophy children for display, which would indicate a second-handedness, which would indicate some lack of integrity. Perhaps it's a need to lord over a nearly helpless kid. Who knows? All we can say is that if the facts are out there for one to see, and one has looked long at the issue and still is committing severe errors, then some philosophical and psychological problems still lie unexamined.

As far as bombing outlaw countries (such as Iran, Russia, China, Syria, North Korea, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, etc.), many Objectivists have shown a tendency to pull back from the brink, stating that America "can't just go around bombing the hell out of other countries."

Why not? These countries are openly terroristic, export their terrorism, put Americans in danger by their very existence. Even some top Objectivists don't think we should just go around "blasting people to hell."

I think this shows a lack of justice, which should be a hallmark of the full Objectivist mind. Harsh justice for the bad. Effusive complimentary justice for the good. The mind that shies away from full justice is the mind that won't do justice to itself, won't search itself fully, won't completely fix itself and blinks when it knows something is wrong.

And lack of justice on any part indicates a lack of self-esteem.

So, if all us Objectivists were perfectly integrated (completely virtuous and in full pursuit of values), would we disagree properly? Yes. Sometimes the facts of a situation are momentarily too complex (What is the proper marketing strategy in a different culture?) or determining something is a bit intangible (How many years do you put a rapist in prison for?). These conclusions are based on highly complex formulas and information. We can agree to disagree or to keep our minds open for more facts.

But in some cases, we just got to get our minds right -- as the prison warden says in "Cool Hand Luke."

Scholars have debated for centuries Jesus's exact meaning in Matthew 22:21, where he says, "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's."

One set of scholars sees this phrase as Jesus's clever way of avoiding tax authorities by seeming to say that the people must pay taxes, but actually covertly saying to followers, "Caesar deserves nothing, so you must render him nothing." These are the same scholars who praise Bill Clinton for wondering what the definition of "is" is.

The other set of scholars, which is correct, understands that Jesus was specifically being asked about paying taxes when he answered, and was stating clearly that citizens must abide by the Caesarian law and obey Earthly authorities.

The rest of the quote helps make this last point clear. Here's the full quote from Matthew: "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." He's making clear the full power of the two alleged authorities, and equating their legitimacy. Pay taxes and give God your soul. End of subject.

But all of this misses the actual point, which is: NEVER BE AMBIGUOUS ABOUT MORALITY! No person of integrity leaves anything open to ambiguity, as Jesus was want to do repeatedly. If Caesar was wrongfully in power -- and, of course, he was -- then nobody should render anything to him, and Jesus should have said this clearly and boldly, especially given his alleged belief that this life is simply a base precursor to an alleged other life.

Here's what he should have said: "Hell no, you don't render unto Caesar and you shouldn't render unto any Caesars! Your life is your own. You cannot be forced to do anything by anyone that you have not contracted to do. End of subject. You are a rational being, and all of that Garden of Eden stuff was just God (um, that's me, I guess) having a bad-hair day. Hey, Jedidiah, stop being a Bogart on the wine, will ya?"

Jesus's Caesar quote is one of hundreds of instances of Jesus's foggy immorality that has so captivated Conservatives in America. In fact, the Conservatives love Jesus so much that they ignore his injunctions, usually when liberals, the new Caesars, demand more taxes. When this happens, the Conservatives suddenly pretend that they don't like taxes, especially against rich Conservatives who are ignoring Jesus's injunction to "sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven." (Matthew 19:21)

Virtually everything Jesus said was antithetical to human life on Earth, relegating humans to destitute ground-grubbers pining for an alleged mystical life ever after -- sort of like folks in the Middle ages before smart people started waking up and saying, "Hey, what the hell have we been doing for 1,000 years following that homeless pin-head who deluded the stupid masses? We should be inventing shit and having fun! Besides, he promised he would come back before his generation was over, and he hasn't and I think he's off somewhere with Mary. Damn him! AND WE'RE OUT OF WINE!"

The Conservatives, even Miss Kitty Coulter (who took Jesus away from Mary when Jesus saw Kitty slowly uncross her sexy legs in a TV interview exposing her pretty panties for the Lefties to go stark raving madder.) simply ignore Jesus (bet he doesn't like that very much -- hence the earthquakes of late).

Yes, somehow, in the Conservatives' little uptight pea-heads they continue to twist and butcher a Jesus phrase worse than George Bush Sr. twisted and butchered the English language. Yeah, Jesus was wrong, but he's their god damned savior, isn't he?

So, to finally get to my point, we liberty lovers cannot depend upon Conservatives to go to bat for us against the Leftist Mafia in America. The Conservatives will do what they always do if they get power again: Say two Hail Marys and "no new taxes" and then RAISE TAXES.

Excuse me, Kitty, would you mind uncrossing your legs one more time -- pretty please?!

Take a ride with a genius inventor who has discovered how to mix hydrogen with virtually anything combustible to power vehicles -- with almost perfectly clean exhaust. He explains it all quite well during the ride.

Look back over the demostrations over the last 100 years -- at Berkeley, at Ohio State, in San Francisco, in Washington D.C., at Republican conventions, at presidential speeches, at environmental gatherings, at conservative speeches, at college speeches by conservatives.

What's a common occurrence?

Violence. Not just shouting down speakers who've been asked to speak by institutions. Not just threats of physical violence against the speakers. Not just demands that governments shut the speakers up.

Violence. The conservative kitty-cat Ann Coulter (meow!) became the latest victim of these red-faced club-wielding low-brows in Canada. 2,000 of the peace-out thugs swarmed an auditorium where Kitty Coulter was to speak; they rioted, set off a fire alarm, threw tables, blocked entrances and shrilly screamed like tantrum-throwing little girls.

They should, of course, know better than to mess with the Kitty, who blistered their panty-lined bottoms with scathing humor (see link above). One particular person received his justice de stylo from Kitty. His name is Francois A. Houle (French for Frank. A Hole, Kitty explained), the provost at Ottawa University, where Kitty was to speak.

Mr. Houle subtly incited the riotors by threatening Kitty with prison if she incited "hatred." And then Mr. Houle didn't show up at any of Kitty's three planned speeches in Canada. Kitty's response: "(To add insult to injury, Francois didn't even plan to attend my speech because Tuesday is his bikini wax night.)"

The peace-out ninnies will not enjoy Miss Kitty's delicious humor. They're too busy hating -- hating freedom lovers for not surrendering to the Lefties' demands for handouts for "free" education or free food or free medicine or free housing or free panties.

They are, as Ayn Rand put it, subjectivists who have rendered themselves incapable of self-control and happiness and, therefore, succumbed to the only thing they understand: violence against others who will not put up with their irrationality and wish to speak out against it.

They act like beasts, but are much worse. They are what only bad humans can be: malevolent. Lower animals have no choice but to commit violence. They don't do it because they're mad; they do it because it's their nature. But human violence is entirely man-made. It is an acknowledgement of existential failure in the world. It is a tantrum against the world. It is a malevolence against the world.

And it is a hallmark of the Leftist movement here in America and around the world.

Unless you're a liberal in a constant state of secluded ejaculation over the recent takeover of American citizens' health, you've seen the scores of stories about how the Roman Catholic church's hierarchy has for decades (actually centuries) been covering up the rape and abuse of little Catholic boys and girls by its clergy all across the world.

Bishops, arch-bishops and cardinals have been "quietly" handling the abuse "in-house" to prevent scandal and to protect the church's reputation, ahem. The crack in the dam began in the 1990s with one man's brave public exposure of the abuse he suffered at the hands of one pernicious clergyman, who raped the boy consistently for years. (One Milwaukee reverend is accused of sexually abusing 200 deaf boys.) Since then, hundreds (or perhaps thousands) of others have come out of the Catholic closet to attest to the same tawdry acts by people they were supposed to trust.

In nearly every case, the Catholic hierarchy covered up, simply relocating the pedophiles or demoting them or quietly asking them to leave the church. This is criminal behavior and must be treated as such.

In the last few days, new information printed in The New York Times shows that the current pope himself, Joseph Ratzinger, was in charge of oversight operations for these types of sordid acts. In fact, he did not report the Milwaukee reverend to police, instead letting the egregious abuse slip quietly into the mystic night.

If a corporation were to be as dismissive and secretive about such abuse within its ranks, worldwide outrage would be deafening. Police, the FBI and governments everywhere would be dedicating immense resources to uncover the complicity. Denunciations would be pervasive. Computer files, documents and other evidence would be confiscated for prosecution.

Yet we hear very little from governments (themselves horribly corrupt). We hear no demands that the pope now turn himself over to police. We hear no threats to apprehend the pope and his robed minions across the globe.

The Vatican considers itself a sovereign nation -- and so did Iraq. But look what we did to Saddam Hussein, who wasn't even abusing our little boys. The United States must immediately send armed forces to apprehend the pope, try him in a court of law and, if convicted, put the execrable son-of-a-bitch in prison with the worst elements of American society.

Do it now -- before more young boys and girls suffer under the mystic cloud of medieval acts.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Ayn Rand wrote a stunning nonfictional piece on the comprachicos (the child buyers) in 1971. The comprachicos were a 17th century nomadic group in Spain that bought children, horribly disfigured them and then used them as circus freaks to make money.

Ayn used the comprachicos as a metaphor for the New Left's progressivism and its deforming of young American minds in classrooms with moral relativism, obedience and group conformity, thereby assaulting the cognitive faculties and making zombies of children, thereby softening them up for the acceptance of the tyranny of the altruistic Left. (Ayn made some mistakes in her attacks on "free expression" in children, but that's a conversation for another day.)

The comprachicos have expanded their mind-destruction with environmentalism in recent decades, but there's another hideous branch of these parasites feeding on Americans.

The compravotantes. The vote buyers.

The compravotantes are politicians and their backers of the right and left who court the support of interest groups with the promise of wads of cash stolen from hard-working Americans. The interest groups comprise individuals who are willfully poor, lazy, in bad health, or are of a certain skin color, of a certain sex, of a certain age.

As conduits and receptors for the stolen booty, the politicians and their backers become wealthy demigods with supreme power over individuals, as we see in the upward tilted head and smug smile of Barack Obama or the sullen superciliousness and giddy pugnaciousness of Nancy Pelosi.

The victims of the compravotantes are not just those Americans being openly robbed, but also those receiving the booty, who become addicted to apathy, lethargy, entitlement, anger and regular streams of free cash to continue to not pursue virtue and value. They become ever more psychologically corrupt, ever more the pawns of the compravotantes, ever more demanding of the slavery of their moral betters who wish only to be left alone, and ever more insistent of more power in the hands of the compravotantes.

The compravotantes gladly abide as they buy their souls, helping to create hideous humans who pleasurefully mock those they steal from with condescending looks at grocery stores, with shouts of "racist" or "sexist" or "insensitive" or "selfish" or "rich bastard" or "corporate chieftain" or "not a group player" or "egotist," with demands for even more money for ever more conditions of the "less fortunate."

The compravotantes took their macabre game to a new level on Sunday evening (a day that will live in infamy), as the U.S. House of Representatives (I dare you not to cynically laugh as you speak that name) voted a virtual takeover of humans' health in the United States of America (I dare you not to become anxious in speaking that name).

The compravotantes care not a wit about humans, much less human health. If they did, they would withdraw to chambers, eradicate every piece of Leftist legislation in the last 130 years and then become invisible to the public eye. They care only about power -- coercive power. Or, as Ayn called it, pull.

They court the detritus of America and use it as flesh-pile to smother individuals who dare to live in liberty, to earn their own way, to be happy in their egoism, to pursue their dreams unencumbered. In turn, the flesh-pile of sordid and grotesque psyches trudge to the ballot box with smirks and irrational chips on their shoulders anticipating revenge upon those more "privileged."

And then they are repaid in full for their complicit deceit. With the new legislation outlawing free commerce in one's health, they will get free dialysis, more free prescriptions, free visits to hospitals, free service from health professionals -- while once-free individuals work diligently in a nearby office with a government gun to their temple and an agent demanding, "Work harder! We need more cash!"

The compravotantes are smiling now. They are throwing parties. They laugh into the TV cameras. They shake hands and pat backs. They have won.

Or ... they think they have won. It is a Pyrrhic victory. Being corrupt, they have the disease of the corrupt: the underestimation of the moral, the miscalculation of the certitude and fight of the virtuous. They have won a battle but will lose the war.

They will, in a decade or two or three, be relegated to do the thing they despise the most: work. They will have to work and sweat for a living -- without the rush of powerlust, without the luxury of coerced booty in their wallets and purses, without the sly grin of knowing someone else must work with a gun to his head.

They won't know it immediately, but they will earn back some of their self-esteem. After I and millions of my friends in objectivity imprison the politicians, chase off their malicious minions and establish and ordain individual rights in a new and glorious America, we will be free -- for the first time in history, be free -- and the compravotantes and comprachicos will be deceased.

The girl, Constance McMillen, wanted to go to the prom with her mate, and she wanted to wear a tux. Itawamba Agricultural High School pig-heads told her she couldn't bring her sophomore girlfriend to the prom, and then the school's Bible-thumpers circulated a memo commanding that no student could bring someone to the prom of the same sex. The meat-brains also told McMillen she couldn't wear a tux. (Everybody knows that girls in tuxes turn all other girls into Lesbians.)

The ACLU jumped into the frier and the thumpers got scared, so instead of banning McMillen, the thumpers simply cancelled the prom. Yes, cancelled the prom entirely, theoretically ruining a seminal point in all the students' lives because of their bigotry.

Well, no, the pig-heads had other plans. They then floated the idea that some private person could hold the prom, thereby circumventing the laws and the ACLU and allowing the private person to exclude anyone he wishes.

Bye bye, Constance McMillen and her broken-hearted girlfriend, and hello, pig-heads. "I'm going to have to change schools or something," a distraught McMillen said.

If the story ended there, the Commandment-mongers scored a victory.

But it didn't, thanks to Ellen DeGeneres and the web site www.tonic.com. On DeGeneres' show Friday, McMillen received a $30,000 scholarship check. DeGeneres said she's proud of McMillen for challenging the school district's rules.

Oh yes, of course, DeGeneres is also a ... LESBIAN! Ack! Take that, pig-heads. You just got a sweet young girl a free ride through college.

Governments acquire their just powers from rational constitutional law and the rational consent of the governed. They are allowed by the people they serve the privilege to protect individual rights. They do not have the right to do anything. They must obey objective law. If they don't, they should be thrown from office and prosecuted, like a common criminal, for the attempt to violate the individual's right to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of unabridged happiness.

I mention the above after having hundreds (or thousands) of conversations with Americans about the proper role of government in our lives and seeing their willful obedience to the subjective authoritarianism of the state, their bashful reticence in criticizing the state openly, their slavish concurrence with the dictates of state, their insistence that the state oppress other individuals and even themselves -- as if the government were an immutable god, a force of incontestable authority.

The reason for this surrender to servitude, of course, comes from people's bad opinion of themselves. Most Americans consider themselves and their fellow Americans "fallen" and incapable of consistent rationality, thereby needing an authority outside themselves to control their "urges" and "selfishness."

The 16th-century philosopher and political analyst Thomas Hobbes is the most famous and earliest proponent of this viewpoint. He believed that without an authoritarian government to suppress "unlimited freedoms," humans would live in a tribal state of nature because they allegedly live lives that are "nasty, brutish and short." He believed the government must be an ominous Leviathan who tempers the alleged mental illness of people. This is precisely the beliefs of most modern Americans and the rest of the world.

Wish such a bad opinion of humans (derived largely from young children's swallowing the skepticism of humans found in all subjectivist creeds, such as religions and leftist households), people believe themselves needful of authoritarian commandments and control in their moral life, thereby capitulating to alleged gods, preachers and "officials" of any kind, including government. They insist upon authoritarian government. They believe it actually necessary to give them comfort to know that someone, something is in control besides their fallen selves.

And so they believe governments actually have unassailable rights to control and dictate the actions of humans. Whereas, if most Americans and the rest of the world were objective, they would understand that humans are not fallen and are completely and utterly capable of running their own moral lives quite effectively and happily, thereby insisting on no interference or coercion by anyone -- including the representatives of government.

Such circumspect and rational humans would have a wonderful sense of life and would understand clearly that any government is constructed solely to allow individuals to pursue their values morally. They would understand that government is a necessary tool for their safety and money, not a bludgeon that interferes with their safety and money.

They would know when they set up their government that they were granting a temporary and tenuous privilege for that protection, and they would give the officials the warning: "You better be good. You better honor individual rights. You better exactly toe the line. You better be objective. If you aren't we'll prosecute you, shackle you and send you to prison. Do you understand?"

The 17th century philosopher and genius John Locke was the first to correctly expound upon the idea of "the consent of the governed." If he were to visit us Americans today, perhaps he might add a word to his phrase. Perhaps he would say "the rational consent of the governed," because today in once-great America, we have consent -- consent to be oppressed.

The seminal and wonderful Mr. Locke may be forgiven for his benevolent belief in the rationality of humans. He was himself quite rational.

We'll know that Americans are getting more rational when we hear them talk about governments abusing their "privileges." I look forward to seeing that signpost.

Friday, March 19, 2010

Come join me, my friends, in a march on Washington -- a tax revolt march on the very bastards who were elected by the willfully ignorant masses who seek payoffs for their loyalty.

There are more than 194,000 of us now marching on April 15, with about 5K being added every day. Go HERE to check this great thing out.

I'm bringing the tar and feathers in case one of the cockroaches shows his cockroach head. There'll probably be more than a half-million in the march, which will feature Neal Bortz and many other speakers.

It ain't a perfect march (which would seek imprisonment for all elected officials and the end of taxation), but it's headed in the right direction: no more IRS and flat taxes or a tax on consumption.

Still theft, yes, but it's a hell of a lot better than what we have now.

TEACHER: George Washington not only chopped down his father's cherrytree, but also admitted it. Now, Louie, do you know why his fatherdidn't punish him?LOUIS: Because George still had the axe in his hand....______________________________________

TEACHER: Now, Simon, tell me frankly, do you say prayers before eating?SIMON: No sir, I don't have to, my Mom is a good cook.______________________________

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

The leader of the United States Senate is Harry Reid (please pretend that I utter that name as if a viper pouncing upon its prey). He believes that taxation is voluntary. Yes, voluntary. Don't believe me? Watch this fascist moron in the video below say it over and over again. This monster is the Marxist mindset we are up against. It is Atlas Shrugged writ large.

Here is a frightening and excellent video on the Soviet-style Marxism that is the so-called "health care plan" concocted by the Leftist of America. The facts will shock you. It's already gotten 2.5 million hits on YouTube.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

The legions of anti-capitalist capitalists who run to antitrust officials every time they feel put-upon by big business are growing in this modern era of whiny-babies. The latest is the CEO of TradeComet.com, who's going after Google for allegedly "decimating" his business. Here's his letter to the Wall Street Journal. My reply to that whiny putrescence is below.

___________________________If you have a business that’s a bit bigger than a competitor’s, you may buy a bigger sign, which more customers can see and thereby give you more business. The smaller business can then try more clever ways to get the word out – such as employees wearing costumes and carrying signs by the street – or the smaller company can just whine about being smaller and “mistreated” and run to government officials for intervention.

If you’re running a highly efficient business, you may lower your prices, thereby getting more customers and perhaps putting other similar businesses out of business. That’s capitalism – good for customers, bad for bad business. The people who lost their business can learn their lesson and more adeptly start over – or they can run whining to government officials.

If a business decides to branch out with its products/services and suddenly finds itself competing with former suppliers, then the business will most likely stop recommending the suppliers to its customers to reduce competition. The suppliers should’ve already known to have spread risk and have many contracts, but if they didn’t, they may suddenly find themselves on the precipice. They can then try to quickly diversify or they can whine and go to government officials for intervention.

In his March 10 letter to the editor, TradeComet CEO Dan Savage makes it clear what kind of company chief he is, by running to government antitrust officials and whining that Google “imposed a penalty” on his site and “decimated” his traffic.

No, what Google did was change its own proprietary property – something it has every right to do if it feels it may give it a competitive advantage. Mr. Savage’s bizarre and incredible presumption is that Google must ensure that his site remains competitive against Google, thereby reducing Google’s business and stock value. It is now a mockery of morality that Mr. Savage is filing a suit against Google to add legal injury to verbal insult.

Mr. Savage and other company chiefs who go running to government officials each time they feel put upon by the Goliaths might wish to watch a sports game that involves a matchup between an overmatched weaker team/individual and a much stronger team/individual. You will see the weaker opponent try even harder, reach a little further, run a little faster, be more creative, think outside the box, plan better, sweat a little more to defeat the larger foe.

And if the weaker opponents loses, you’ll almost always see a face of satisfied exhilaration at the brave attempt – not a whiny person running to the official shouting, “It’s … just … not … fair!” The U.S. antitrust office has become (as officials hoped it would) a bastion for whiny-baby pseudo-capitalists with chips on their shoulders and no moxie to dig deeper and battle it out.

Here's a terrific Atlasphere column from John Stossel on how licensing laws are simply a means for those currently in a profession to lock others out -- ostensively to protect consumers, but really simply to limit competition.

I don't know if you're as anal about microbes and chlorine and other unhealthy stuff that your body has to filter out of the crap we drink and eat as I am.

But if you are, you might want to know about a top-rated water filter that I just purchased online after doing some research into that stuff to find the best product for the best price.

It's the Aquasana AQ-4000. Check out THIS CHART that compares the top brands. It takes out virtually every bad thing from the city tap gunk and leaves in the good minerals. It ends up costing less than 10 cents a gallon (beats the hell out of the $1.20 spring water from the grocery store).

I've been using a Brita brand filter for a year and thought it was pretty good (good smelling and took out chlorine and lead but little else), until I saw it compared with other top brands. The Aquasana is actually cheaper over the long run, much cheaper, and takes out all the crap. It's also topped the critics' sites for the last six years on quality and price ($99).

If you want to save your liver the nasty work and get rid of that awful tap-gunk smell and taste, I highly recommend the Aquasana. Mine will be delivered early next week. Can't wait.

Tuesday, March 09, 2010

Ayn Rand once noted that a definition of individual rights can often effectively be put in the negative: to be free from coercion (the initiation of force) by other men (including the men of government).

That means other people must always keep their hands off of you, your money and your property, as long as you do the same. It is a big "don't." Don't interfere with someone else's right to be let alone, to fully govern their own lives and well-being.

Conversely, a right does not obligate you to DO anything. You do not have to be productive, you do not have to be moral, you do not have to help others. You are free to run your life toward happiness or run your life into the ground.

But if you decide upon the latter (or former, for that matter), you cannot demand that others take care of you. They have the same right to "don't": to do nothing for you, to stand by as you self-destruct or fall into abject poverty or poor health. They don't have any obligations to you that they haven't signed in a contract to do for you. Your immorality does not obligate them to surrender their rights to self-determination. They can morally say, "I have a life to live. I care more about me, my friends and my family than I do you. So, good luck and get lost."

Rand gave a perfect definition to rights:

A “right” is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man’s freedom of action in a social context. There is only one fundamental right (all the others are its consequences or corollaries): a man’s right to his own life. Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action; the right to life means the right to engage in self-sustaining and self-generated action—which means: the freedom to take all the actions required by the nature of a rational being for the support, the furtherance, the fulfillment and the enjoyment of his own life. (Such is the meaning of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.)

With all of the above in mind, the American welfare state is an immoral travesty. It assumes that individuals have an obligation to DO something for other Americans -- be it for housing, food, medicine, old age, health, etc. -- to surrender their individual rights.

The modern politician and 99% of Americans have bought into this philosophy of altruism -- and its stepson: political altruism -- instead of the philosophy of rational self-interest that recognizes each human's fundamental right to pursue his values for his own happiness and sustenance.

Once the sacrificial philosophy of altruism is embedded in the human mind, that mind then demands that humans sacrifice their self to other selves, that they must surrender their goals for others' goals, that they DO something for others, whether they like it or not. (What irony is it that these altruists think it is OK for us to make others happy but not ourselves?)

This is, fundamentally, the philosophy of skepticism: the belief that humans are not fully rational, not efficacious, not capable of being fully happy by themselves, not nice. Once this belief in the "fallen" human (usually via religion or neo-Marxism) is swallowed and ingrained, the mental house of cards falls, and the landscape of liberty is littered with the wreckage of coercive altruists, who seek some redemption for their mental confusion by pretending to overly care about others. It's the Jesus syndrome. "I've come here to save you." It's the heady "savior" mentality to compensate for their own lost identity.

The fix is singular: Recognize that reality is real (not supernatural). Recognize that humans are rational and capable of understanding reality. Recognize that humans can guide their own lives and develop a rational morality to be that guide. Recognize that governments have only one job to do: to protect rational beings from being interfered with on their free paths to wherever they wish to go.

In other words, the fix is the philosophy of Ayn Rand. You don't have to read and study Rand. You don't have to DO it. But if you don't, I'll never be free of you and your demand that I DO something for you or those you allegedly care about.

Study Rand. Hold your head high. Let's shake hands as happy equals and make a toast to liberty.

Just when I thought I'd exhausted the alphabet soup that is alleged disorders of our modern era that I have (see my post yesterday), along comes an article today on "Intermittent Explosive Disorder" (IED) -- not related technically, I presume, to Improvised Explosive Devices, which blow up on the sides of roads and not in your head.

I confess, I have IED. It rears its ugly head every time I see ObaMao, UberMann, Pelosi, Dodd, Barney Frank, George Clooney, Matt Damon, welfare queens and kings, and all other thieves who use the police and voting booths to steal my money.

The first two steps of my 12-step program to end my IED are to establish a constitution protecting individual rights and to imprison all those who stole my money and freedoms for decades.

Voila! No more IED! In fact, I may then have another IED (Intermittent Ecstatic Disorder).

We get so few glorious victories in our love affair with capitalism that when one happens, we get a brief smile and a hardy "Yeah, baby!"

Such is the case with Amazon's decision to drop all of its affiliates in Colorado after the fascist leaders of that state imposed sales-tax regulations on online retailers.

The Colorado fascist-in-chief (aka governor) signed a law last month that requires online retailers to either collect sales tax or share information with the state about all the purchases made by residents, so the state could demand booty (aka taxes) from those residents.

In an email to its Colorado retailers, Amazon called the new laws "burdensome ... and clearly intended to increase the compliance burden to a point where online retailers will be induced to 'voluntarily' collect Colorado sales tax -- a course we won't take."

Of course, we capitalists would enjoy a louder "Yeah, baby!" if Amazon had added, "Colorado has decided to join other fascist government entities in their direct and immoral violations of individual rights, so we will cease and desist operations that allow such transgressions against rational humans and their productive endeavors until the fascist dogs publicly reject such immorality and extinguish the offending laws."

That isn't likely to happen from the fascists. Here's what the Colorado fascist-in-chief, Bill Ritter, had to say about Amazon's move: "Amazon has taken a disappointing -- and completely unjustified -- step. Amazon is simply trying to avoid compliance with Colorado law."

You hear that? That's the sound of a frustrated fascist denied his booty by a company that won't play his jackbooting game.

The one thing that characterizes all of the above syndromes and "disorders" is that they are NOT diseases. They are the consequence of bad parenting, bad diets and coercive government authoritarian control of the mental content of children via "public education" (well, except for BBS and IFS, ahem).

ADD is not a disease. Children are not born with "attention deficits." Attention deficits are created. They are created by enforced conscription of children into activities or situations that they do not wish to be in, supplanting their own values for others' values.

It is a consequence of being told, "You will sit in that uncomfortable, constricted chair for six hours each day of the week and listen to puke, pabulum and propaganda, whether you like it or not -- do you understand me?!"

It can also be the consequence of horrible eating, mostly way too much sugar and carbs, which turn the body into a hyperactive spasm of uncontrollable urges to MOVE, to MOVE ANYWHERE. I know. I was one of those kids brought up on cereal, lots of cereal, and milk, which my body couldn't digest and thereby turned milk protein into copious amounts of gas, which I embarrassingly exploded upon my nearby victims in every concentration-camp class I was forced to attend. (How many times did I hear from my fellow prisoners, "ELMORE?!!!!!!!!!!!!! God damn, not again!!!!!!!!"). That's not a legacy one can proudly wear. I did, however, save a few calculated explosions for the deans and the principals when sent to their office for discipline for excessive talking because of DBD and DFD.

The excessive sugar gave me IBD. The glacial pace of instruction gave me ETS, and so my report cards contained A's for classwork and lots and lots of bad-conduct capital letters to the side stating ominously: "Excessive Talking." Luckily, the only thing that the dictator, my dad, cared about was the A's. "I don't give a shit whether you talk too much as long as your grades are good."

So I talked. And talked. And talked. And got sent to the principal's office, where I farted. And farted. And farted. Until the noxious cloud precipitated a brief upbraiding and a quick dismissal back to a classroom of smiling friends and a miffed teacher.

I hated school. Let me repeat that. I HATED school. Loved meeting new people and having lots of friends. Hated being told when and what to learn. It was MY life. No it wasn't. Yes it was. No, it wasn't. All I could think of each day was babes (BBD) and looking up the dress of my buxomous 8th-grade World History teacher, who had a lovely tendency to wear VERY short skirts, jump up on her desk at the front of the classroom and slowly cross her legs, causing many male students to go to the nurse's office for strained necks and hurting crotches.

Yeah, OK, that was fun -- looking up Ms. So-and-so's dress at the pink/purple/black/red panties -- but that was one short (too short) class in a history of violence against the human mind and free will. Mostly, public school simply elicited rage from me and many others (mostly boys, it seemed). Whose life was it, anyway?! "I'm not going to use the fucking quadratic equation in my life, you boring sack of pig's testicles!" Thus DFD or another disorder/syndrome set in.

The cronies of coercive education and their conspiratorial counterparts in psychology have developed an acronym alphabet soup to attend to the natural effects of extreme boredom, extreme coercion, extreme diets and extreme devastation of one's own personal interests at a youthful age. These professorial posers would like you to think that all the fucked-up kids have somehow contracted a genetic disease. But the posers have one major problem in their diagnosis: They have ADD.

Their attention deficit is philosophical. They do not attend to the exigencies of philosophical inquiry, thereby causing them to misunderstand cause and effect: When you pummel free will, you get disorder. When you coerce thinking, you get non-thinking. When you combine the two you get alphabet soups of lost generations. Those are inconvenient truths for parasites on the public teat.

End "public schooling" now. Save the children (for once the cliche applies). Let's take the capital letters out of "ADD" and put them back in math -- not "new" math.

Let the kids be free to enjoy their individual rights to self-determination and productive and creative lives -- and their BBD in their teenage years.

Saturday, March 06, 2010

The demagogues of both of the corrupt political parties in America have decried "illegal" immigration recently, and most Americans seem to support their demagoguery, for economic or racist reasons.

But our shores and doors used to be wide open, and the best, brightest and hardest-working people of the world poured in -- many of them simply great workers, some of them great working minds.

America, herself, may not exist if not for one man, one immigrant man: Thomas Paine.

Paine came to America from England in the notable year 1775 and became a quick citizen with the help of Benjamin Franklin. Paine had written only one published piece in England before arriving here, but within one year wrote "Common Sense," which ended up selling millions of copies and, most likely, stoking the fires of rebellion more than any other tract in history. He is known, perhaps correctly, in many scholastic circles as "The Father of the American Revolution."

And he was an immigrant -- from the country we went to war with, no less.

It is a cliche to say that this country was founded and fueled by immigrants, and it is true. But the fires of anti-immigration have always been hot against virtually every nationality coming to our shores: Irish, Italian, African, Asian, Polish, Mexican, etc.

But I say, let them come. Let them all come except those who openly seek us harm. Open the shores, the doors, the harbors, the ground borders to all who seek liberty, work and happiness.

Let them compete with us already here. Let them bring their creative minds, their calloused hands to the marketplace of people and ideas that is America. This is not our land. It is the land of those who wish to work it, here and abroad. Xenophobia is not our government's job, and it is not an attractive trait for those of us immigrants and descendants here already. We need more good people, more good ideas.

A renowned critic wrote a Wall Street Journal piece today on how Tarantino didn't abide by history in his "Inglourious Basterds," thereby somehow not giving Jews and the rest of us a significant movie. My letter in response to this trash in the Journal is below.

________________________Bernard-Henry Levy’s column “Hollywood’s Nazi Revisionism” exhibits a profound misunderstanding of what art is, and therefore does not give justice to director Quentin Tarantino and other filmmakers’ bold attempts to create their own moral canvas.

The philosopher Ayn Rand correctly defined art as “the re-creation of reality according to an artist’s own metaphysics,” which means that art is a sensory exhibit of the character of the artist, including his perception of reality and his perception of what’s right and wrong. Art is *not* about restating the exact facts of reality – a documentary. It is a “re-creation” of reality. Rand called the best art “romantic realism,” which accentuates the “should” of humans and lets the audience revel in heroic characters – not the mundane, the mediocre, the horrid, the malevolent.

And so Tarantino portrayed the “should” by giving justice to Jews (and the rest of us who abhor what the Nazis did). The Jewish heroes of “Inglourious Basterds” get their just revenge upon their putative murderers, and it is deeply satisfying. Hitler is shown horrified at his imminent death by burning (what justice that!) at the hands of a Nazi girl whose family was exterminated in a cellar.

And it is deeply satisfying – in a way that a cowardly suicide in a bunker is not. It is art. It is, thankfully, not the drab, amoral insistence upon historical veracity that plagues modern cinema and, I assume, consoles Mr. Levy.

But alas, Apple announced yesterday that it's late March launch of the iPad will be delayed a week. A WEEK!!!!!

Sacre bleu! Tell me it ain't so, Stevie! I'm feeling verklempt!

OK. OK. (deep breaths). So the iPad will be on store shelves April 3, just three days before my 50th birthday. That design will have the Wi-Fi capability but not the 3G, which is the one I want and will not be on store shelves until late April.

The horror! What's an iPad fanatic to do? Guess I'll go for a run. ...

Friday, March 05, 2010

Several years ago, some Christian bitch-dick in Texas tried to stampede Texans and the rest of the world into taking the "hell" out of "hello." He got bitch-slapped by practicality. Even his fellow Christians (most of them, anyway) told him to go to hell-o.

He got his fifteen minutes of mockery, and now comes the perennial copycat. This time it's a punk-ass bitch teenager in South Pasadena, CA, who started the No Cussing Club three years ago in middle school.

The disease has been contracted in 20 countries, where similar smug-clubs have begun. "Next year, I want to do a world tour," the punk-ass bitch simpered this week. "Cussing is a hard habit to break, but anyone can do it."

Never ones to let the bandwagon roll by, California lawmakers passed a resolution last week establishing the first week of March as "Cuss Free Week." And the cute little lawmakers are passing around a "cuss jar" for those whose tongues slip.

Aw shucks! Perhaps the lawmakers will grant reprieves for the wealthy Californians regularly raped by the California tax code. Or, better yet, help slim down that $20 billion state deficit by following Tiger Woods around at the annual Torey Pines golf tournament with the cuss jar.

Now, cussing isn't any good if you do it all the time. You gotta be choosy, and the word has to fit the criminal. There are times when only cussing can truly capture the repulsive dregs we encounter in our lives -- from the punk-ass PC bitches above to monster pricks like Al Gore, ObaMa, Ubermann, Pat Robertson and the Clintons.

Actually, he never stopped being mad, of course, but he got lots of free print space from his Lefty butt-buddies at the NYT to spew his madness again about the CO2 fever our Earth is allegedly suffering from because of naughty, fire-breathing humans.

Of course, he's been refuted even more times than he eats every day, so his most recent tantrum is the minister preaching inside the whorehouse: lots of happy people point and giggle at the frumpy, thrill-kill alien with the plump, sinister eyes.

How could sane people not laugh at a corpulent specter who says things like, "From the standpoint of governance, what is at stake is our ability to use the rule of law as an instrument of human redemption"?

Jesus just rolled over in his grave -- or wherever he's supposed to be. As well he should be rolling over because he's got some serious competition on smoldering Planet Earth from a fat guy with hockey stick and a Hitler complex.

If you, too, are ashamed to count Al Gore among Americans, then you might like to hear from a man who is English but who is an American lion at heart. His name is Lord Monckton. He's been the voice of reason on ClimateGate for years and has had a standing public invitation to Al Gore to engage in an international debate on the subject of alleged global warming.

Gore, of course, has avoided Monckton even more vigorously than facts. Monckton has brought the English around mostly with his passion for reason and has been spreading the word in America, too, for the last year.

Listen to this magnificent man in this PJTV interview. Listen especially to the last six minutes, in which he praises the Tea Party and America herself and Thomas Jefferson and the Constitution of the United States.

It's going to lose $7 billion this year and possibly as much as $238 billion over the next 10 years.

We coerced "customers" will pay for our mail via the front door, as usual, and wheelbarrows full of our "tax" cash will be wheeled in through the back door, as usual, to keep this union-bloated behemoth fed and slogging.

The PO is considering again halting Saturday deliveries, of course, reducing service instead of offering better service, as a private company would have to do. A private postal service would've already been sliced and diced up by its lenders, and competition would've run it out of business, creating a much better service that took into account the information age, the Age of the Internet, which is now biting seriously into the PO's accounts.

I remember having a conversation with a PO delivery guy just five years ago and asking him if the Internet was chopping away at PO income. He said no, but I knew he was either lying or fooling himself. (He actually told me that business was increasing!) I told him that it was and would do so on a grand scale once banks and other companies began automatic drafts and online checking on a bigger scale. He said, "Well, there'll always be a need for us."

Uhuh. The Feds are not helping the PO, of course. The law mandating service to all households and businesses in America at the same stamp price means that the PO can't be selective and charge more for those choosing to live rurally.

The obvious answer (to anyone not a redistributionist Lefty) is to liquidate the pathetic PO, get the government out of the mail-delivery service, and let UPS and FedEx and startups do what they do far better: give good services and products to free Americans.

In articles today in newspapers around the country, researches said they may have found the link to obesity: microbes in the gut that "want" food.

They don't say how the microbes get there; in other words, they don't know the chicken and the egg. Do the microbes get there because people eat badly, causing them to develop, or are they there genetically?

Newsflash! I personally discovered the cause of obesity when I was six years old and have finally decided to disclose that cause: the fork.

For some people, their forks inexplicably continue to go toward the mounds of food on their plates and then race back toward their mouths -- over and over and over again.

I made this amazing discovery by watching friends and family at picnics and family gatherings when I was a wee-boy. Some of them seemed to have forks that "wanted" food. One thing I could not explain, however, was that the forks inexplicably stopped wanting food when I used the same forks, which suddenly ceased their round-trips when I picked them up and felt full.

I supposed that the forks may have not liked me as much as the obese family and friends. I also saw that the forks seemed to cause the obese family and friends to not get involved in family sports and activities. These people lounged around, farting and belching, while I and others played and sweat.

And yet, after all our activity, our forks still made fewer round-trips at the lunch table than the forks of our obese relatives and friends.

So, forks cause obesity!

What other explanation could there be: That the obese acquaintances would not control their diets, would not exercise, did not care about their appearance and health, wished to not be nimble and enjoy life as it is supposed to be enjoyed?

Tuesday, March 02, 2010

March 27 is "Hug a Hippie Day," also known as "Earth Day," so it's as good a time as any to celebrate human achievement and the exploitation of the giant ball of minerals we know as Earth that has, through the inventive mind of humans, given us a standard of living unmatched in history.

So, turn on them there lights, raise the heat in the house, turn on the car's motor, salute a nuclear reactor, bake a dozen chocolate-chip cookies in a hot oven, put the fridge on #1, plug in the humidifiers and dehumidifiers and heat lamps and suntan beds and tread mills and computers and vibrators, start up the lawnmowers and weedwackers and chainsaws and leaf-blowers, set a box of matches aflame, flick your Bics, light a stogie or some illegal form of vegetation, get the fireplace raging, turn on the ceiling fans.

Then get in your bathing suit, grab a bottle of red, open the blinds, and smile broadly at the wonders of mankind as the hippies rant and rage on Planet Earth.

The Wall Street Journal printed a long front-page article yesterday on Microsoft's back-door dealing to have lawsuits brought against Google for alleged "anti-trust" violations. In other words, Microsoft is jealous, is beaten, is whining, and is going after Google with the guns of government.

This is wretched, of course, and straight out of "Atlas Shrugged." But Google committed a similar breach of morality against Microsoft just last year when Google piled on in a European Union investigation against Microsoft and its browser. Here's my letter to the WSJ editor on the article.

_______________________The Monday article on Google and Microsoft sparring over antitrust issues had my full empathy for Google until, halfway through the article, I was reminded by the writers that Google had piled on during the European Union’s immoral crusade against Microsoft’s private property in 2009.

I recollect now that ignominious moment when Google manqué decided to join the wolves attacking a giant simply because the giant had earned its size by privately (not by government fiat) selling products and services that millions of people around the world freely chose to buy, including an attached browser.

This type of hypocrisy is what happens to many of even the best businesses because of anti-trust demagoguery, wherein government officials arbitrarily decide when a company has allegedly gotten too big for its britches, when a company has allegedly become too successful and still presumes (Imagine that!) to set its own terms for sale instead of a demagogue.

The Sherman anti-trust act of 1890 and its wretched progeny have left big business to the immoral whimsy of the concentration camp guard for too long. All anti-trust legislation must be abolished – primarily to honor private property, but also to take away a bludgeon whose only purpose is to make big men submit and to line the pockets of bureaucrats with booty they enjoy calling “fines.”

PJTV again strikes gold. This time it's Bill Whittle in a moving paean to our Founders, the Declaration of Independence and Lincoln's eloquence. Though Lincoln was our most eloquent president and sought many noble goals, his means for achieving those goals set our country down a path of tyranny. But nobody of noble mind and spirit can deny his profound and poetic expression of liberty.

Watching a brilliant actor portray pathology would be like watching a top athlete carry a licey bum through 3 miles of a leech-infested swamp.

It is a waste, a moral debacle. It is not art; it is cinema realite, European-style, scrounging up the worst in humans and splattering it upon a screen.

Such is the case with Matt Damon and the wretched "Informant," a movie about a pathological liar who ostensively is informing on the corrupt activity of his bosses but is instead about the maniacal self-delusion of a man who knows not what he does or why he does it -- for attention perhaps, but who knows? He's not the man on the white horse of earlier cinema. He's Quasimodo hurling shitballs from the flying buttresses of Notre Dame. He's incapable of telling the truth, incapable of a moment's sincerity, incapable of immersing himself in the connective tissue of reality and other people.

Damon is riveting and pathetic, a man caught in the abysmal gray fog of personal anonymity, perplexed by his own charade, causing perplexity in the few moral people around him, zipping through an infinitely twisted mental labyrinth of confused motivation and deceit with the purposeless inner dialog of the idiot savant.

Some reviewers of the movie have called Damon's character "bi-polar." No, he is modern, utterly confused with his own self-identity, amoral, narcissistic, entangled far down the jungle path of his own escapism and reeking destruction, confusion and mayhem upon the people who bravely deal with the real world.

As if the plot and drama of "The Informant" weren't abominable enough, we viewers are subjected to the simplistic device of voiceover, or inner dialog, that only a few movies in cinematic history have executed with any good effect (namely "Blade Runner" and a few others). It is "Catcher in the Rye" on steroids.

Here's one such nugget from Damon's character, who spouted 10 or more such meaningless nuggets throughout:

"When polar bears hunt, they crouch down by a hole in the ice and wait for a seal to pop up. They keep one paw over their nose so that they blend in. Cuz’ they’ve got those black noses. They’d blend in perfectly if not for the nose...

So the question is. How do they know their noses are black? From looking at other polar bears? Do they see their reflections in the water? And think, “I’d be invisible if not for that.” That seems like a lot of thinking for a bear."

OK, if you're high, sitting with friends and one of you comes up with this little insight, it's really funny. But the obvious purpose of this *during a movie* about a freight-training pathological liar is to highlight his disease, which, of course, is what this movie is all about (except the writer's own self-conscious Leftist attempt at cleverness). It's the lowest common denominator in art, the modern "empathy" for psychosis, the Leftist Hollywood projection of its inner turmoil and alleged superiority to hoi polloi.

The canvas equivalent of this putrescence is a neon pile of colorful shit. "Yes, yes, isn't it interesting how the purple dung segues easily, mellifluously, into the yellow worms feasting? Brilliant!"

Don't watch "The Informant." If you do, cleanse yourself. Take a good shit and then drink a glass of palette-refreshing wine.

I've been blogging regularly now for 25 months -- after an aborted attempt to do so in 2005.

This marks post number 410 in those 25 months, which is more than 16 a month. I'm not a diarist, or at least didn't think of myself as a diarist. I abhorred writing diaries. They depressed me somehow. I think it's the solitude and self-absorption of it -- unlike a blog, where you feel like someone is listening.

A blog is more like a pretend group discussion, and it's much easier and faster to type than write -- and you don't have to worry about dusty storage and lost diaries. You also get feedback on when you're being a numbskull or when you make a good point or are just sharing your emotions. It's interactive and exciting.

And it's learning. My ambition when I started regularly blogging in February of 2008 was to become a better writer, better thinker, better conveyor, more integrated, more in touch with the momentary thought and reflection. I also knew that someday I might take this David brain on the road politically and/or philosophically, which meant having digested better what I knew and who I am.

No, that wouldn't prepare me for all situations and questions perhaps, but, hey, I love spontaneity and a little befuddlement that requires immediate and novel inspection.

Anyway, it's been fun and informative. #410 is behind me. I welcome #820.

I wrote the following greeting to Katie on her wedding page guestbook a few moments ago, in hopes that she contacts me soon. It was an awkward thing to do. How does one announce oneself is such a case without coming across as strange in some way? We'll see how it goes. Hearing her voice on the other end of the phone would be a heart-stopper and tear-jerker.

______________________Hello Katie and Erik. Congratulations to you both and many fond wishes for a happy new life together!

This is Katie's biological father. I visited with Katie when she was 5 and 6 years old. We roller-skated together, went to the beach, took lots of pictures with my camera (I still have many), played "doll house" and much more. I have many great memories.

Dawn told me to leave and not see Katie again when Katie was 6 because of my non-religious viewpoints. I did so. I sent letters and birthday and Christmas gifts for many years afterward, but I don't know if Katie got those things. I've been trying to find Katie for many years now to just say hello, and I finally came across the wedding announcement in the Post-Standard of Syracuse when I Googled Katie's name yesterday. I enjoyed each of the hundreds of photos of both families. You two look great together.

I don't know if Katie would like to call me or email me. I understand if she would rather not, though I hope she does, just to chat. I'll leave my phone number and email address in case she does. My phone is 404-409-3283 and my email is yandarn@bellsouth.net.

My Facebook page is http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?ref=profile&id=543083544. My blog is at www.beerandmind.blogspot.com.

I live in Roswell, GA, with my daughter Livy, who is 6.5 years old. I'm divorced but have a very nice relationship with my nice ex-wife Kelly. I'm a writer and businessman. I wrote a novel in 1997 and write regularly now. My work is printed in the Wall Street Journal and other papers, as well as my blog. I'm now writing my second novel and some political pamphlets along the line of Thomas Payne's. I'm a Tea Partier. I jog 3 to 4 times a week and love fitness.

Just wanted to give some background on me, so you will know that I'm not some crazed guy trying to too hard to begin a relationship with a daughter who hasn't seen him in 18 years. :)

OK, how many of you know the difference between liability insurance and collision insurance for your car?

Uhuh. Uhuh. OK, ALL of you. That's right, you've been having to deal with the facts and facets of reality and existence in the real world for years now and know that liability insurance means your car is not covered if you're in a wreck, but the other car and its occupants are covered if it's your fault.

And you know that with collision insurance, both cars are covered if the wreck is your fault.

Count yourself enlightened and as smarter than our current Marxist-in-Chief, who, like all good Marxists, hasn't a clue as to how the free marketplace of ideas and products and services operates and believes that individuals have a right to the property and money of businesses no matter what happens in their pitiful life-wreck.

Monday, March 01, 2010

After I blogged yesterday about not seeing Katie for 18 years, I again checked Google with her full name, Katie Rose Howard, to see if anything had changed and couldn't believe that her name finally came up after years of checking. She got married.

I can hardly believe it! I'm still in shock. I don't know why her name didn't come up during Google searches before now. She's changed a lot but still looks much the same, except she's dyed her hair "beach" blonde. And she's MARRIED -- has been since August 2008. Wow!!

I'll be doing more searches to see if I can find out where she and her husband, Erik, live. And I'm going to leave a comment on their wedding picture site. We'll see how all this goes.

Here's how the announcement of their marriage read in the Post-Standard of Syracuse, NY:

"Katie Rose Howard and Erik Michael Wiehl were married August 9, 2008, at the Sandbar on Anna Maria Island in Florida. Officiating the beach-side ceremony was the Rev. Paul Herpich, pastor at King of Kings Lutheran Church in Liverpool.

The bride is the daughter of Dawn Howard, of Bradenton, Fla. The groom is the son of Robert and Linda Wiehl, of Tipp City, Ohio.

Matron of honor was Alison Wiehl, sister-in-law of the bride. Bridesmaids were Hannah Crowe, cousin of the bride, and Gina Stover, Bridget Bancs and Erika Jennison, friends of the bride. Best man was Christopher Wiehl, brother of the groom. Groomsmen were Derek Fisher, Christopher Lannie, Jeff Light..."